You know you’ve lost the culture war when you have to retreat behind a garrison to live the way you want.Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan is attempting to build America’s first “Catholic Town.”
Abortions, pornography and contraceptives will be banned in the new Florida town of Ave Maria, which has begun to take shape on former vegetable farms 90 miles northwest of Miami.
Tom Monaghan, the founder of the Domino’s Pizza chain, has stirred protests from civil rights activists by declaring that Ave Maria’s pharmacies will not be allowed to sell condoms or birth control pills. The town’s cable television network will carry no X-rated channels.
The town will be centred around a 100ft tall oratory and the first Catholic university to be built in America for 40 years. The university’s president, Nicholas J Healy, has said future students should “help rebuild the city of God” in a country suffering from “catastrophic cultural collapse”.
This is a nightmare. It’s nothing more than a town-sized cult compound. I pity the poor children raised in this cultural concentration camp.
It’s not that different from what my mom Elizabeth Clare Prophet tried to do in the Paradise Valley of Montana. Not only does it not work, in terms of protection of your children from “the world,” it paradoxically makes them even more curious. It’s kind of like being raised in a religious version of the Truman Show: all kids will want to do is find out what’s going on outside the prison gates.
And when they finally arrive in the cultural mainstream, they won’t have had the benefits of having learned about it gradually for 18 years. They will be handicapped, because they have been taught to see the world in only a very limited, (and personally limiting) context. Without the normal training and socialization, young people coming out of such a cloistered environment can fall harder and faster than anyone else.
The enduring stereotype of the sex-crazed Catholic schoolgirl didn’t come from nowhere!
But this isn’t the only thing lost on Monaghan, or university president Healy. These two are downright frightening with their backward belief systems. Healy considers secular trends in Europe to be “one of the most profound and unsettling developments of our new century”.
Healy also states that “If you consider the more telling signs, such as its plummeting birth rate, Europe does not even seem to believe in a future . . . children are a sign of hope and the fruit of obedience to God’s command to be fruitful and multiply.”
Ah….maybe Healy should check to see if ‘god’ provided enough resources for his multiplying children. Last time I checked, we would need about 7 to 10 earths to sustainably support even the current population (at First World levels of consumption), let alone future increases. If we were all SUV driving, meat-eating Americans, we would need 11.6 earths!
Healy better hope the gods of technology can keep up with all the indiscriminate rutting of his non-birth-control-using Catholics. In the words of Bill Hicks, we need to figure out “this food/air thing…”
7 comments
Great, here we go with the Greenie bullshit again.
By the way, you should read my latest entry, it’s about that phone conversation we had on morality. You remember that ? I wrote this entry a few days after we talked. Well, you know how my schedule is on the blog, so… here it is now.
Francois,
Do you honestly think Catholics should just keep breeding indiscriminately?
But never mind that. Evidently, you want to argue publicly with me about the ‘greenie’ issue. You’ve never ONCE mounted a single cogent argument to support your bias against environmental science. All you can ever do is complain about it. Wishing won’t make the problems go away.
I’m kind of surprised that you would focus on this, when we are both trying to deal with a much larger threat to the human race in the form of religion and belief systems. My post was on a CATHOLIC TOWN, and only mentioned the sustainablitity issue in passing. But that’s what you chose to focus on. So here’s my response:
There are plenty of places to look for documentation, such as I showed in the comments on the “Climate S.O.S.” post. But you don’t seem interested. Strange you never even responded. You also never responded when I sent you the list of 10 situations that may require “collective action” to deal with situations that involve “collective interests.” Here they are again for the record:
Collective interests:
1) local, regional, and national security
2) insurance (pooling of risk)
3) international trade policy
4) taxation/benefits/healthcare
5) a meteor is hurtling toward the earth — how shall we collectively stop it?
6) disaster relief
7) global climate change
8) large scale scientific research / space exploration
9) public education
10) advocacy organizations
I’d like to know how all those things could be handled privately, for starters.
You’ve got some major blind spots, dude, in terms of favoring ideology over practical real-world solutions. If you don’t think the first world is living beyond it’s environmentally sustainable means, then I’m sorry, you’ve got some serious reading to do.
There will come a day when the current era of fossil-fuels will be looked at the same way we now view the dark ages. Why not embrace the future of a cleaner, more sustainable planet? Why not work toward better, safer, more-affluent, sustainable lives for everyone? Such a goal is fully compatible with free-market principles–so long as externalities are controlled.
You’ve got to get this, Francois! Clean and green tech are not just for the environment. Natural Capitalism is really a revolutionary concept, and it represents one of the biggest business opportunities in history. You really need to check it out.
Controlling population is also something that comes with education and affluence, and would be a major side-benefit to ending religious (especially Catholic) domination.
Please don’t forget–we’re on the same team!
I didn’t ask for an essay on your delusion about “collective needs”, which you can’t even define. I just wanted you to read my latest entry. My comment about Greenie dogma was just to rile you up.
I really don’t know what “sustainable” or “collective needs” mean. None of the 10 points you list are “collective”. They all concern the interests of individuals, who will naturally desire to come together to solve them without trying to impose by force a single value system (Greenie beliefs, in your case) on everyone. And some of these things, like defense, insurance, international trade policy, education, are not even problems : they already exist as consumer products. I guess you are simply ignorant of that fact, or just want to ignore it.
Perhaps the only collectivist element there is “taxation”. The mere fact that you would ask me to discuss the implementation of organized theft, which gives the ruling class the power to do war, to me shows that you are going at this from a very twisted and corrupt moral perspective.
In short, you think ruling class interests, dogma and force are the only way to solve problems. That’s stupid and not practical at all. Government has never solved any environmental problem, all it has done is ruin natural resources (like fish in the Maritimes or in Quebec lakes, forests in the US, etc) and is usually the biggest polluter in its territory.
Your solution has a zero track record. My solution has a good track record. That alone should show you how “practical” you are being right now.
Yea, it’s nice of you to say that we’re on the same team, but your comment has very little reasoning behind it. You consistently refuse to define your moral or ontological premises, you constantly refuse to look at the facts of political reality, and you expect me to treat this conversation like this is some kind of gentlemen’s club I suppose ?
Listen, Sean, I’m just not that kind of guy. My style is very ruguous. I don’t waste time with people, I tell them they are saying bullshit when they are saying bullshit. On the phone I talk a lot, but on the Internet I am a man of few words (and many of them can’t be said on television).
If you want my respect in this conversation, you need to define your premises. Here are mine :
* Collectivism does not exist. Everything in politics is reducible to individual self-interest, or it does not exist.
* The use of coercion to accomplish goals is evil and never works. Coercion is the enemy of rationality and freedom.
* The Greenie dogma that human values are less important than other forms of life is silly. We are human and can only speak meaningfully of human values.
* Solving environmental problems can only be done through the application of rational, scientific and anarchic principles (such as private property to stop Tragedies of the Commons).
Ruling classes have never had interest in solving environmental problems, because they are the main agents of pollution and are supported by other agents of pollution (corporation leaders, car users, etc).
Francois, addressing your points:
–Collectivism does not exist.
Agreed. But coalitions exist. Nations exist. Individuals pool risks and interests. Management of this is an important human activity. You still haven’t said how we should handle collective threats like a threatened meteor strike. Please address this particular issue.
–The use of coercion to accomplish goals is evil and never works.
Agreed. But what about mutual agreement? Some would argue that taxation is by mutual agreement since it was voted for by a majority of citizens. It’s impossible for people to “opt out” of taxation, because unless you move out of the country, you still benefit from the services and umbrella it provides.
–The Greenie dogma that human values are less important than other forms of life is silly.
I NEVER SAID that other life forms are more important. I’m ONLY concerned with a better life for humans. That’s my ENTIRE reason for supporting sustainability–meaning that humans in the future will have access to at least as many natural resources as they do today. That’s my only goal.
–Solving environmental problems can only be done through the application of rational, scientific and anarchic principles (such as private property to stop Tragedies of the Commons).
Ruling classes have never had interest in solving environmental problems, because they are the main agents of pollution and are supported by other agents of pollution (corporation leaders, car users, etc).
Agreed. But fixing this involves coercion. You have to pass laws that prevent the ruling classes from polluting the commons. You have to not allow them to avoid paying for their externalities. I might agree with you that privatizing the “commons” might be the best solution. But even then, it would be owned in common. Corporations have shareholders.
My point is that all human activities have consequences beyond the individual level. Some form of dealing with collective interests is necessary for human civilization.
“Agreed. But coalitions exist. Nations exist.”
No they don’t. Show me a nation.
“Individuals pool risks and interests.”
Yes. Individuals do.
“Management of this is an important human activity.”
Yes.
“You still haven’t said how we should handle collective threats like a threatened meteor strike.”
It’s not a “collective” threat. And I don’t know how ANYONE would handle a meteor strike. Government would only fuck it up, of course.
“Agreed. But what about mutual agreement? Some would argue that taxation is by mutual agreement since it was voted for by a majority of citizens.”
That makes no sense. Mutual agreement is rooted in individual agreement. No one has ever asked me if I agreed to pay taxes and to join an organization of people who pay taxes – because that would be MARKET ANARCHY ! Democracy is not individual agreement, it’s just a fancy way to legitimize the ruling class and its exploitation – including taxation.
“you still benefit from the services”
If a mafia “protects” you in exchange for extortion money, is that a “service” ? I’ve never contracted for this “service”
“I NEVER SAID that other life forms are more important.”
I said it was the main Greenie belief. If you don’t believe that, then you might not be a Greenie. IMHO, the three main Greenie belifs are :
* Other, “materialist” human values are inferior to ecological values.
* Private property must be controlled or abolished in the name of ecological values.
* Globalization is evil.
(this is so they have a slogan to chant – the others are too long)
“That’s my ENTIRE reason for supporting sustainability–meaning that humans in the future will have access to at least as many natural resources as they do today.”
That makes no sense. Humans in the future will have access to as many natural resources as their technology allows them. Technological progress is what you’re looking for here. But Greenies are against that too.
“Agreed. But fixing this involves coercion.”
No it doesn’t.
“You have to pass laws that prevent the ruling classes from polluting the commons.”
Why would the ruling class pass laws against itself ? When has this ever happened ?
No… I’m a market anarchist. I don’t believe in passing more laws.
“My point is that all human activities have consequences beyond the individual level. Some form of dealing with collective interests is necessary for human civilization.”
I don’t know what a collective interest is.
By the way, about that meteor strike, I’m guessing it involves giant lasers or explosives. Since it doesn’t involve wrecking the environment or waging war, I don’t see how government would be useful for that.